“Some like to believe it's the book that chooses the person.”
~ Carlos Ruiz Zafón ~

Spotlight

​From the couture clothes, private jets and homes around the globe, I have the best of everything. But looks can be deceiving, and in my family, deception is an art form. So, I bide my time and count the days until I’m free.

Heiress Christina Harcourt lives a life surrounded by the finest this world has to offer. Unfortunately, what she wants most can’t be bought. After losing her mother in a heinous crime, she tries her best to live the life she knows her mother would want for her. But through her family’s hurtful ways, Christina learns the only way to do that, is to leave this life far behind. Everything is going as planned, until she meets him.

Sexy, carefree CJ Whitford is a hard-working, blue collar guy who can’t get the guarded brunette out of his head. So, he takes a chance and rearranges his life to go after the girl he’s falling for. He quickly discovers that Christina’s secrets are as big as her heart. A heart so fragile that all it will take to destroy it is one more lie … his.

Excerpt

​At the sound of Eric clearing his throat, we finally break from the kiss. My hands are planted flat on his chest as I look into his eyes for the last time, determined to forever memorize their shade of blue. Still holding on with one hand, he raises the other and pushes the hair away from my forehead with a finger, then places a soft kiss there. This one small, light touch speaks to me louder than the deepest kiss we’ve shared. Than any kiss I’ve ever experienced. It makes me feel cared for and, more importantly, it makes me feel ... beautiful.
I clamp my jaw to keep from telling him to stay, to call me, anything but goodbye. Just as I’m prepared to say the two words I’m suddenly dreading most, he beats me to it.
“Bye, beauty.” He releases me and steps back, giving me his dazzling smile for the last time. I give him a wide smile in return, and ache a little knowing that in a different life, I could fall hard for a guy like him.

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“That I can read and be happy while I am reading, is a great blessing.”
~ Anthony Trollope ~

Spotlight

Running Man is set in northern Italy. At 21, Giorgia Manfredi is a wealthy Cinderella in a golden cage. Trapped in her family's business — a luxury hotel on Italy's Lake Garda — she yearns for a normal life. When jogger Danny Davies rescues her from a mugging, Giorgia finds that love comes at a price, bringing with it hostility, deceit — and conflict. Can she forgive those she loves and find happiness with the man who’s stolen her heart?

The book is the third in a series and can be read as a stand-alone novel— though, of course, I’d be more than happy to provide the first two in the series if you’d like.
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Excerpt

​She opened the bag and peered inside, flipped up the flap of her purse. In the half-light he could see that she wasn’t short of money. For God’s sake, she should just have got a taxi and spared them all. It didn’t look as if she had to make decisions about how she spent her cash.
‘It’s all here.’ She looked up at him. ‘I forgot my manners. Thank you so much for that.’
She wasn’t a pretty girl, or he hadn’t thought so. His first impression had been one of an angular face, harsh cheekbones accentuated by fear and distorted by shadow. But she smiled, and a second look made him catch his breath. Nobody — surely nobody — had a smile that lit up their face like that. ‘It’s okay. I wish I could have done more.’ Though quite what more someone like him could have done for someone like her was beyond his comprehension.
‘I want to thank you. I…’ Her fingers hovered uncertainly over her purse as if she were deciding whether she’d insult him by offering a reward.
He spared her the decision, raising his hand and stepping back. ‘I didn’t do anything. I was just out for a run. It was just chance.’
‘But you didn’t have to go after him. He might have been violent. You might have got hurt. What’s your name?’
He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t. It only matters that you aren’t hurt.’ And then, before they could think of insisting that he tell them his name, dragging him in as a witness and tying him into the elephant traps of the justice system and the inconvenience of being good, he turned his back. ‘I’ll be on my way.’
‘Thank you,’ she called after him, and he didn’t answer. And as he ran, he heard the man’s voice. ‘Come on, Giorgia. Let’s get you home and call the police.’
He was well out of that. Best just to hope they never came looking for him, that they took his act of charity at face value and left him in peace.
More tired than he’d thought, he nevertheless put in an extra few hundred metres to give Will time to get out of his way before going home. A pretty girl, after all. And a beautiful name. Giorgia. He ran it around in his head a couple of times, wondering if he’d go through the rest of his life associating that name with those eyes, with that smile, whether he’d forget her soon enough, or whether any subsequent Giorgia he might meet would disappoint him by the comparison.
One thing was certain. He didn’t know who the man was that she was with, but if he was her boyfriend he wasn’t looking after her. Putting your arm around her after the event was worse than useless; he should have been there when she needed him. If she was Danny’s girl, he’d never have let it happen, never have left her side.
But she wasn’t, and never could be, his girl.

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